past sleep
by Akauzu-kun
Summary: Who should wander into Kakyou's dream besides someone who cannot dream at all?


Well, since ff.net will soon delete everything else I have written, might as well put up some fics from over a year ago...  
  
[Disclaimery stuff: Nothing is mine. I'm a college student, I can't   
afford anything anyway.]  
  
  
-Past sleep-  
Authour: Akauzu-kun  
  
  
  
[Satsuki dreams in code. The numbers and letters form a meaningless   
gibberish that only she can read. Of course, the BEAST understands   
as well. The two of them share a language that the rest of the world   
could never comprehend. Other people - they talk constantly, but   
never say anything. To the BEAST, every word, every line has   
meaning. Communication in its purest form. Other people... they   
would hate her, and cut her with their words. The BEAST loves her.   
Do you really think that? asks a voice. Yuuto's voice. Satsuki   
suddenly can't remember if she's awake or if this is only a dream.   
Does it matter either way? Negative.]  
  
[In Sorata's dream, he knows that he is dead, just as the prophecy   
said. Strange then that he feels fine. Better than fine, actually,   
since Miss Arashi is sitting opposite him. He tries to get her   
attention, but she ignores him as always. As if she cannot even see   
him. Maybe... maybe she cannot see him. She is clutching something   
in her hands - a funny looking vase, or an urn. Sorata notices the   
kanji of his own name enameled on the top - now he understands.   
Arashi puts the urn on the mat, and draws the sword from her palm.   
Sorata places his hand on hers, but she flinches. His touch could   
have been a breath of air. Tears roll down her face as he screams   
her name to deaf ears. She is looking directly at him - but he is   
only a ghost, and she sees nothing. She plunges the sword into her   
neck in the ritual suicide of a female warrior as Sorata holds her   
tightly.]  
  
[Kusanagi dreams of trees, great old ones like in the redwood forests   
of California. Trees that have lived for thousands of years,   
fighting for survival as plants do - growing tall and dense, to   
better keep the light from saplings that threaten to choke them.   
They feel no remorse in starving the younger ones. The old trees are   
survivors, and care little for the affairs of men. The branches that   
grow into the sky are mirrored by a network of roots deep   
underground. They know where they stand, and are unshakable. Old   
trees never fall in love.]  
  
[Karen's dreams are secret.]  
  
[Kamui of the Heavens is with Kotori in his dream. She is a   
beautiful as he remembers, her gold-colored hair streaming about her   
like a halo like the angels in a book Karen once showed him. She   
wears a white dress too, just like the book angels. It is laced with   
red ribbon - no, not ribbon, but blood. She is lashed to the wall in   
a grotesque parody of crucifixion, with cords binding her and cutting   
her skin. Still, she is smiling. Almost as if someone else is   
controlling the muscles of his body, Kamui raises his sword...]   
  
Kakyou breaks off his dreamgazing there, having no desire to   
repeat that scene. It only serves to remind him of another innocent,   
another sacrifice to this endless war. A sacrifice of blood to   
appease uncaring gods. He has watched it replayed countless times,   
in every vision of the future. He wonders if it will ever cease to   
affect him, if one day he will stop suffering for deaths he could not   
prevent. He feels the pain as if it were his own.  
  
He stands - or floats, since there is nothing that can truly   
be called a "ground" - in the area between dreams. It is empty and   
grey in all directions. Here float snatches of lost dreams,   
forgotten things and old songs. An almost palpable sense of   
nothingness wraps itself around the frail dreamseer. Kakyou is at   
once disconcerted and calmed by the emptiness. Sometimes he stays in   
this in-between world, imagining himself to be one of those lost   
objects or un-realised imaginations. It is almost as good as death.  
  
It is a compulsion of his to monitor the dreams of those   
involved with the fate of the world. It is his form of spying;   
espionage that does little for either side of the war. Kakyou feels   
little for sides or partisanship: The Dragons of Earth seem more   
likely to meet his wishes, so he allies himself with them. There is   
no point in protecting humanity when the only human one cares for is   
already dead.   
  
Kakyou has one wish left to him, and he clings to it with all   
the strength he has left. To die, to free himself from a prison   
where nothing is real, yet that which he most treasures is denied to   
him. He cannot even create the dream of her. Certainly, he can   
counterfeit her form, and her voice, and her eyes - but she would be   
nothing more than a form. The boy Fuuma, whom Destiny has deemed   
Kamui, is the only person who seems capable of understanding. Kakyou   
does not know why he seeks the comfort of Kamui's hands. Those hands   
are just as likely to be stained with blood. Perhaps whatever part   
of Fuuma that has not been consumed by Kamui feels just as alone and   
helpless as Kakyou. Perhaps Fuuma bears the shreds of Kotori's   
innocence, and Kakyou is only drawn to the memory of another   
sacrifice. No matter how the world ends, one Kamui will die so that   
the other may triumph. There will be a sacrifice. Kakyou only knows   
that Fuuma is unafraid, and that his hands are warm.  
  
Kakyou begins to discorporate himself into ribbons of matter,   
preparing to enter another dream. Perhaps he can trace a dream of   
the Sumeragi: perhaps she will be in that dream. He kneels on the   
spot of the grey world that he has designated as a "floor" gathering   
the half-formed pieces of his robes about himself. He closes his   
golden cat's-eyes.  
  
"You are the dreamseer of the Dragons of Earth, are you not?"   
asked a strangely neutral voice. Kakyou coalesces back into his   
customary form and wheels to face the stranger. It is a tall figure,   
clad in Chinese dress like some half-remembered god. The sign of the   
lotus is printed on its forehead, partially covered by short white   
hair. It has a name, or two of them.  
  
"I am that dreamseer. And you are Nataku. Or Kazuki."   
  
"Yes."  
  
Nataku of the Dragons of Earth. The bioroid, created from   
the genetic material of a dead child. Emotionless, sexless,   
soulless. Perfection.  
  
Toujyou Kazuki. The girl destined to become a Dragon of   
Earth, but claimed by illness. Off all people, Kakyou knows that   
destiny is unavoidable, even in death. Kazuki lives, in some form;   
cloned, with her father's DNA filling in the holes left unusable by   
her disease - and yet not Kazuki. There is little in Nataku, the   
killer with the wide innocent eyes, to suggest a young girl.  
  
Nataku realises that it is standing at a noticeable slant   
from Kakyou: one of the hazards of meeting in a place where there is   
no direction. It delicately rights itself, coming closer to the   
dreamseer.  
  
"You do not usually dream - or, at least, you have never done   
so in the past." Kakyou wraps his arms about himself almost   
defensively, purple and white robes spilling out around him. No   
human ever comes to the area between dreams. Most keep themselves in   
intensely private little fantasies of their own. Then again, most   
humans have souls. Unlike Nataku.  
  
"Is this my dream? It is strange to me." Nataku's voice is   
soft, but not readily identifiable as male or female.  
  
"This is a dream - but it is merely a collection of fragments   
of other people's dreams and a vast emptiness."  
  
"And I am a collection of other people's lives" muses   
Nataku. "Or so I have been told."  
  
"So you have no dream of your own?"  
  
"I'm sorry, I was not created with dreaming in mind. Perhaps   
it is something related to the soul? If so, I am of no use to you."   
Nataku examines its clothing, which is nothing more than the usual   
ceremonial costume it usually wears. "Though the fact that I dream   
at all is a mystery." It questioningly picks at the stitching of its   
sleeve. It seems real enough.  
  
"Perhaps you have developed a soul, then" says Kakyou,   
offhand.  
  
"I do not understand. You seem to be well acquainted with   
dreams. Would you tell me what this 'soul' is?" Kakyou gives a   
short, hollow, laugh, which only elicits a confused frown from the   
bioroid.  
  
"I wouldn't know. Mine died long ago, when she died."  
  
"Did it really?" Nataku asks the question in all innocence,   
more out of politeness than a desire to spark a philosophical   
discussion. Kakyou, however, asks himself the same question, albeit   
with a different meaning. He looks away uncomfortably.  
  
"Yes." He speaks with little resolution, though. His is the   
voice of a tired man.  
  
"And yet you must dream as well, to be the dreamseer."  
  
"I don't do much of anything else."  
  
"Then I should revise my hypothesis. Still, this is a   
problem. Could you tell me what dreams are like, then, if this is   
not the correct type? I would at least like to emulate humans, as   
that seems to be my purpose in addition to my role as a Dragon."   
Kakyou sighs. He cannot bring himself to be irritated by this almost   
shockingly innocent being, although Nataku is somewhat… unnerving.   
In nine years, Kakyou has found a certain complacency in his misery,   
and is not used to being interrupted.  
  
"For the most part, they are memories, or fantasies, or   
fears. Though the body is in a state of rest, the brain creates its   
own reality. Some would say the brain creates its own reality when   
we are awake, so in a way we dream always." Nataku looks confused.   
Kakyou paused to rephrase himself. "You remember who you were   
before, don't you?"  
  
"Yes. Toujyou Kazuki, female, age nine, daughter of..."  
  
"Not statistics. Images, or feelings, that type of thing."   
Nataku closes its blue eyes, concentrating. The lotus mark is picked   
out on its forehead in crimson. Simplicity and innocence colored by   
blood. Kakyou finds himself with several unpleasant memories of his   
own, and focuses on Nataku's voice.  
  
"I remember my father's face. I remember running to meet him   
when he came home from work."   
  
Kakyou nods encouragingly. Although for the most part he   
cares nothing about the personal lives of his comrades, this Nataku   
strikes him. A familiar sense of loss - although Nataku does not   
seem to know what it has lost. They are similar, Nataku and Kakyou.   
Both are ghosts.  
  
"My father was very kind. He would always ask me how my day   
had been, and I would say 'I missed you, Daddy.'"  
  
Kakyou recalls Nataku's reasons for joining the Dragons of   
Earth. A chance resemblance between Kazuki's father and the Kamui of   
their forces... it seemed Destiny would use even the bond between a   
father and child to further its ends. Destiny is ignorant, or   
uncaring, or such human trivialities.  
  
Nataku's androgynous form begins to dissolve, but the bioroid   
is not waking. Rather, it is shifting out of the space between   
dreams. Interested, Kakyou follows suit. Nataku now sits cross-  
legged on a grassy lawn, one of those large estates that only belong   
to the rich. It is more than likely a summer home, as such open   
space would be prohibitively expensive in Tokyo.  
  
"This is my grandfather's home." explained Nataku, quietly.  
  
"This is a dream," says Kakyou, surprised. It is rare that   
Kakyou is surprised by anything, having the ability to see destiny in   
his dreams. He has never bothered to read Nataku's complete future,   
seeing as it ends like that of any other Dragon.  
  
"Is it a dream? It does not feel any different." Nataku   
stands, brushing off its clothing. Kakyou floats several inches   
above the ground in a half-sitting pose, as he often does in dreams.   
It is his way of reminding himself that the constraints of other   
people have no bearing on him. He, too, stands, but this time walks   
barefoot in the grass. It is an interesting sensation. He cannot   
remember ever walking through grass in his real life. Even when he   
did wake, long ago, he was too weak to go outdoors. Walking through   
grass is a pleasant feeling.  
  
He follows Nataku, who seems to know where it is going.   
Soon, they come to a house done in the traditional style, not too   
large but obviously very wealthy. On the walkway is a little girl,   
playing with a doll. At the sound of footsteps on the path, she   
drops her toy and crawls towards the sound.  
  
"That is Kazuki?" asks Kakyou, though he already knows. "She   
cannot walk."  
  
"That is me," answers Nataku. "She is not a very well   
child. It is only a little while until she cannot greet him at   
all." Kakyou shakes his head at the jarring similarities between   
himself and the bioroid. He, also, was born to a rich family, kept   
locked in a room while dreamwalking gradually sapped away his   
strength... Kakyou's father had known about the dreamseer kept under   
the Diet building, and knew his son would grow to be more powerful   
than the feeble woman. Ironic, thinks Kakyou. Nataku picks up the   
dropped doll as Kazuki is collected in her father's arms.  
  
"How was your day?" asks her father.  
  
"I missed you!" squeals the girl. Nataku mouths the words   
along with her, clutching the doll. The doll is dressed as a bride   
in white kimono, with a painted smiling face and the traditional   
horned hat worn to costume the woman as a jealous demon. A demon in   
the arms of an Angel. Kazuki's father carries her inside, muttering   
sweet words.  
  
"I told my daddy that one day I would be his bride. He would   
laugh at me, and tell me to ask my mommy about that. Now all three   
of us are dead." Nataku speaks even more softly than normal. Its   
shape begins to lose definition: it is waking. Kakyou, carefully   
keeping his face bland and expressionless, notices a sparkling   
wetness in the bioroid's pale eyes.  
  
"Nataku... I think you are crying."  
  
"Am I?" More of its body spirals away into the waking   
world. Nataku drops the doll as its hands become incorporeal. "How   
strange." Tears well up in its eyes, clouding the blue. "I should   
tell you... thank you? Yes, thank you. I now have a better   
understanding of dreams. Perhaps I do have a soul, only one that is   
not realised."   
  
Kakyou watches as the last vestiges of Nataku disappear,   
leaving him alone. Nataku will undoubtedly forget its dream in the   
morning, most people do. Kakyou wonders if they will meet again. He   
would not be adverse to the idea. He picks up the doll and replaces   
it where Kazuki left it. Now that the dreamer has awakened, Kazuki's   
world has nothing to sustain it. It fades away piece by piece, with   
only Kakyou unaffected. He transports himself to another dream   
before Kazuki's home collapses around him. For some reason, he has   
no desire to exist in the grey areas between dreams.  
  
He stands on a beach, staring out at the sea. This is the   
dream that he shared with Hokuto for the brief time they were   
together. Even after her death, it remains as a part of him. The   
rolling of the waves is the only sound. Kakyou rubs his eyes to   
clear them, only to find that he too has been weeping.  
  
"Hokuto..." he whispers to the sea. "I missed you." 


End file.
